Archives for August 2013

Bloomberg News/businessweek.com | By Chris Martin, Mark Chediak, and Ken Wells | Link to article There are 3,200 utilities that make up the U.S. electrical grid, the largest machine in the world. These power companies sell $400 billion worth of electricity a year, mostly derived from burning fossil fuels in centralized stations and distributed over […]

SFGate.com/SF Chronicle | By Fran Pavley | Link to article In 1922, U.S. Interior Secretary Albert Fall secretly gave away the rights to oil fields in Elk Hills, just west of Bakersfield, and Teapot Dome, Wyo., for a pittance. After a series of congressional hearings revealed that these natural resources had been leased at millions […]

KQED Morning Edition | KQED report The largest solar power plant of its kind is about to turn on in California’s Mojave Desert. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will power about 140,000 homes and will be a boon to the state’s renewable energy goals, but it was no slam dunk. Now, California is trying […]